What Happened To The Legion of Superheroes?

[Reddead]

I think there is a demographic issue at work. The fanbase for LoSh and Titans simply aged out and once comics moved out of the mom/pop shops, there was no new blood and DC was stuck with two franchses in decline and a fanbase largely from the Wolfman Years (for Titans) and the Levitz/Giffen era for (LoSH). I remember once upon a time that the Legion had a large internet fanbase with its own web encyclopedia that would put the current wikis to shame, but eventually people just dropped out.

LoSH maybe. Titans not really. I know it's a different audience but that young adult Beast Boy graphic novel was the best-selling comic from the Big Two in 2021.

If anything that probably explains why current editorial has decided to push the Titans as the next-generation of heroes over the 5G characters.

[Zero Hunter]

I think the biggest problem is consistency. Everytime they reboot the property they split the fanbase. I know alot of the fans of the writers like Waid and Bendis loved their version of the Legion, but they left the book as soon as the writer did because they were not fans of the characters just the writer. Meanwhile the people who didn't like those runs never came back so you get the double whammy of losing old time fans along with whatever new readers came on board with the superstar writer which makes DC panic and think they have to reboot again.

They need to get a writer who really likes the Legion and not just parts of it. That was a big thing with Waid is he might have liked the Legion, but he only liked the Silver Age version and didn't use any of the most popular characters created later in the 70's like Wildfire, Dawnstar, Blok, or Timer Wolf. He did that in both reboots he was involved in. Bendis never cared about the Legion period. He just know they might be getting a tv show and wanted in on that other media money which is why his version had so many new character and they all had such drastic makeovers. They need a writer who embraces all the Legion history and likes it to get the franchise back on solid ground and try and bring back in long term fans who dropped off and bring in new fans too.

[caj]

I think the biggest problem is consistency. Everytime they reboot the property they split the fanbase. I know alot of the fans of the writers like Waid and Bendis loved their version of the Legion, but they left the book as soon as the writer did because they were not fans of the characters just the writer. Meanwhile the people who didn't like those runs never came back so you get the double whammy of losing old time fans along with whatever new readers came on board with the superstar writer which makes DC panic and think they have to reboot again.

They need to get a writer who really likes the Legion and not just parts of it. That was a big thing with Waid is he might have liked the Legion, but he only liked the Silver Age version and didn't use any of the most popular characters created later in the 70's like Wildfire, Dawnstar, Blok, or Timer Wolf. He did that in both reboots he was involved in. Bendis never cared about the Legion period. He just know they might be getting a tv show and wanted in on that other media money which is why his version had so many new character and they all had such drastic makeovers. They need a writer who embraces all the Legion history and likes it to get the franchise back on solid ground and try and bring back in long term fans who dropped off and bring in new fans too.

Agree with all of this ^^^^^

Levitz loved the Legion and embraced its history (even keeping names like Duo Damsel, Matter Eater Lad, and Light Lass).

If there is a writer out there like Levitz who would embrace the Legion and its history, then they may have a shot at reviving this book.

[Lee Stone]

I think DC putting all its eggs in the Bat-Basket after 1989 was a big factor in the Legion, Titans, Outsiders and Infinity Inc's decline in popularity.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

While we're at it what happened to the Omega Men?

They were like GOTG but way better written and more fascinating.

No, they weren't. Omega Men has never been anything but a niche property. First they got cancelled, and then Giffen turned them into cannon fodder for Invasion!

[Sutekh]

I think the biggest problem is consistency. Every time they reboot the property they split the fanbase. I know alot of the fans of the writers like Waid and Bendis loved their version of the Legion, but they left the book as soon as the writer did because they were not fans of the characters just the writer. Meanwhile the people who didn't like those runs never came back so you get the double whammy of losing old time fans along with whatever new readers came on board with the superstar writer which makes DC panic and think they have to reboot again.

Exactly. I could find bits to love in even the Threeboot, and even more so, the Reboot, but my heart belongs to the original Levitz / Giffen 'Earth 1' lineup.

They need to get a writer who really likes the Legion and not just parts of it. That was a big thing with Waid is he might have liked the Legion, but he only liked the Silver Age version and didn't use any of the most popular characters created later in the 70's like Wildfire, Dawnstar, Blok, or Timer Wolf. He did that in both reboots he was involved in. Bendis never cared about the Legion period. He just know they might be getting a tv show and wanted in on that other media money which is why his version had so many new character and they all had such drastic makeovers. They need a writer who embraces all the Legion history and likes it to get the franchise back on solid ground and try and bring back in long term fans who dropped off and bring in new fans too.

A writer like Kurt Busiek, who loves to dive deep into the history of a team and dig up and revitalize old story elements and characters (as he did for the Avengers in Avengers Forever, embracing the team's history, rather than a writer like Aaron, who just makes up his own stuff that may not stand the test of time so well), would be ideal. Someone who is not angling for movie / TV rights or hoping to drop in a handful of new characters in hopes of a later payday when they appear in the future, but actually has read and enjoyed previous Legion stories and wants to move *that* story forward (not just 'update it' by telling the same old 'first battle with the Fatal Five' or 'final battle with the Time Trapper' stories over and over with slightly different 'modernized' versions of the same old characters).

And that's one of my biggest disappointments with the reboots, is the retelling of tales and re-use of characters like Mordru and the Fatal Five in different continuities, as those sorts of tales, IMO, don't have any audience at all.

Either the fan has read the original tales, in which case it's the height of hubris (and kind of insulting to both the previous writer and to the readers) to think one can 'do better.' (Or that anyone wants to read the writers fanfic about how they could have told the Fatal Five story better.)

Or the new fan has has not read and is not a fan of the old story, in which case they have zero investment in this serving of old hash that's been reheated and served again, decades after it's original freshness date.

Which leaves only those fans who showed up entirely for the 'name writer,' and will blow away like leaves the hot second that hot writer jumps ship for the next hot new thing, like a senator trading up to a newer younger wife (as 'hot writers' tend to do, rarely spending more than a year or two on any property before popping their golden parachute and bailing out).

[DigiCom]

I sometimes think the biggest issue with the Legion is an inability to move forward. Every new series is either a nostalgia-fest (Hello Geoff), revisiting old stories but not advancing things in any real fashion, or yet another Fresh Start™ that immediately starts playing games with revisiting old stories.

My personal favorite Legion product is the Legion Worlds mini that fell between Legion Lost and the Abnett/Lanning run. For the first time in quite some time, the Legion setting felt like a future society, not just the modern era with some sci-fi trappings.

(I've spoken before about how I dislike tying the LSH too closely to current modern events, but that would be a secondary issue)

[joebleau]

What Happened To The Legion of Superheroes?

Bendis happended.

[WonderScott]

I really enjoyed the Bendis and Sook Legion, mostly because of the character redesigns. For lack of a better descriptor, they created characters of different species that made more sense to me with some different types of humanoids evolving and developing in different parts of the galaxy - Star Wars-esque. I appreciated that as it’s an opportunity to explore how different characters powers might manifest and how the communicate, cultural differences, biological differences, etc. To me, that’s a necessary and interesting backdrop for the Legion.

The second thing I want from the Legion is a combination of political intrigue, space opera, soap opera, and lean into some imaginative sci-fi thinking. The Legion could use some sci-fi imagination that differentiates itself from the modern day DC. (Same thing needs to happen with the New Gods and Apokoliptans.) So much potential and world-building to be done if you look at the Legion through those lenses for a comic and television series.

[Sutekh]

I really enjoyed the Bendis and Sook Legion, mostly because of the character redesigns. For lack of a better descriptor, they created characters of different species that made more sense to me with some different types of humanoids evolving and developing in different parts of the galaxy - Star Wars-esque. I appreciated that as it’s an opportunity to explore how different characters powers might manifest and how the communicate, cultural differences, biological differences, etc. To me, that’s a necessary and interesting backdrop for the Legion.

I agree with the desire for more 'alien' aliens in the Legion setting, more like Tellus or Gates, less 'human with a power.'

But even before the Reboot, it was suggested that many of the Legion 'aliens' were just human colonists who'd settled planets like Braal and Winath (and seemed explicitly so for Titan, a small lump of ice that probably doesn't even have life, let alone be able to support or evolve humanoid life!), and, by the Reboot, became canon with the idea that Valor seeded the various worlds like Cargg and Naltor and Imsk that had 'humans with powers' (or even 'humans *without* powers', for worlds like Winath, Rimbor, Orando or Xanthu!) as their 'alien' residents. Other races, like the Durlans, originally orange humanoids with antennae, became even more explicitly alien over time, having a green tentacle-monster as their 'true form.' (IIRC, the Threeboot also dabbled in this, as the origin story of Triplicate Girl seemed to spell out that Cargg was an Earth-colony.)

It was only in Johns xenophobe-Earth arc, where Earth-humans seemed to regard Winathian-humans and Titanian-humans as 'alien freaks,' that the needle moved backwards into 'aliens are just white folk who evolved on dozens of other wildly different planets for scientifically nonsense reasons' silliness, IMO.

The second thing I want from the Legion is a combination of political intrigue, space opera, soap opera, and lean into some imaginative sci-fi thinking. The Legion could use some sci-fi imagination that differentiates itself from the modern day DC. (Same thing needs to happen with the New Gods and Apokoliptans.) So much potential and world-building to be done if you look at the Legion through those lenses for a comic and television series.

The Hypernaturals (from Boom studios), had a Legion-like team set in the future, with a lot of futuristic out-there science-y stuff that was very much the sort of thing I'd have loved to see just sort of casually mentioned in a Legion book. And it was written by Abnett & Lanning, so I suspect it had a lot of the future-y stuff that they *didn't* feel they could explore in their Legion writing...

[j9ac9k]

The second thing I want from the Legion is a combination of political intrigue, space opera, soap opera, and lean into some imaginative sci-fi thinking. The Legion could use some sci-fi imagination that differentiates itself from the modern day DC. (Same thing needs to happen with the New Gods and Apokoliptans.) So much potential and world-building to be done if you look at the Legion through those lenses for a comic and television series.

I'm surprised Morrison never took a run at the Legion. I'd love to see their take on the 31st century and fusing it with Legion lore.(they do seem to have an affinity for the Silver Age) Same with New Gods.

[Zero Hunter]

I'm surprised Morrison never took a run at the Legion. I'd love to see their take on the 31st century and fusing it with Legion lore.(they do seem to have an affinity for the Silver Age) Same with New Gods.

I can think of no other writer worse for the Legion than Morrison. He is just so far off the rails these days it would be a total disaster. Just look at his last Green Lantern run and how weird and nonsenical it was. It would be worse if he did the Legion. That and he is an even bigger Golden Age/Silver Age fanboy than guys like Waid or Johns so I can gurentee he would only use characters from the very early days of the Legion, and would probably make it so campy it would bury the property forever.

[j9ac9k]

I can think of no other writer worse for the Legion than Morrison. He is just so far off the rails these days it would be a total disaster. Just look at his last Green Lantern run and how weird and nonsenical it was. It would be worse if he did the Legion. That and he is an even bigger Golden Age/Silver Age fanboy than guys like Waid or Johns so I can gurentee he would only use characters from the very early days of the Legion, and would probably make it so campy it would bury the property forever.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Morrison's more metaphysical tangents on "TGL" towards the end, but I liked a lot of it and I don't think anyone would blame the Legion if Morrison's take isn't well-received. It would reflect on Morrison, not the franchise. The way things are now an experimental take might kick things off, but it can't make things much worse and I am personally interested to see what they'd do with it.

[kingaliencracker]

The demographic got older, and it became harder to relate to young teenagers saving the world. Same thing happened to the Teen Titans and to a lesser extent X-Men, although with X-Men Marvel just aged them.

[Nomads1]

Bendis happended.

LOL!!!!

Peace